The Confused Nation: Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Big Man Japan
The following is an Accepted Manuscript version of a book chapter in Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture (edited by Camille D.G. Mustachio and Jason Barr), published by McFarland Press in 2017.
In Hitoshi Matsumoto’s mockumentary Big Man Japan (Dai Nipponjin, 2007), Masaru Daisato (played by the director) is an unremarkable Japanese citizen who transforms into a kaiju-fighting giant of the film’s title when his nipples are zapped with electricity. Employed by the Ministry of Defense, which calls upon him whenever there is a kaiju threat, Big Man Japan battles a series of grotesque foes ranging from the Stink Monster, which emits an odor as powerful as 10,000 human feces, to the Evil Stare Monster, something resembling a testicle with a massive trunk/penis, on the end of which rests a giant eyeball. Whether big or small, Daisato is low in social stature. Despite being a sixth-generation kaiju fighter of heroic lineage, he is an uncharismatic middle-aged loner living in a low-rent suburban house, separated from his wife and denied regular access to his eight-year-old daughter. And although he serves a public need, as all superheroes do in some way, the public despises him for his mediocrity. He struggles to maintain ratings for his televised bouts and is forced to rent out parts of his body as ad space by his exploitative manager (played by singer Ua). While the latter drives around in a luxury jeep and owns two Afghan dogs named Sympathy and Delicacy, Daisato rides buses, trains, and a scooter, and cares for an unnamed stray cat.
Big Man Japan is an unorthodox entry in the kaiju eiga (“kaiju film”) genre and performs an unusual double act, from which the film derives much of its humor and meaning. It is a parody of the kaiju film that pushes the genre to ludicrous new highs—or rather, lows—but is for the most part a realist tale grounded in the everyday, observing the minutiae of a superhero’s non-heroic existence within a society that fails to appreciate or acknowledge his hard work. Matsumoto’s direction emphasizes both the pathos and farce of this narrative in equal measure. Most of the film comprises of a documentary crew observing Daisato’s uneventful everyday life as he performs mundane tasks such as shopping, cooking and commuting. When he receives word of an imminent attack, Daisato visits a dilapidated government facility—there are three remaining in the country, down from fifty-two in the “golden years” of his (now senile) grandfather’s reign—to be transformed into Big Man Japan in a low-fi backroom ceremony. In contrast to the monotony of the faux-documentary sequences, which unfold in drab suburban settings and across long, languid takes, the kaiju battles are relatively snappy and colorful affairs represented in third-rate CGI. Far from the drawn-out spectacles as seen in many kaiju films, these battles tend to be brief, usually ending with the sudden and unspectacular death of the kaiju after a few gags are offered.
What is curious about Big Man Japan, besides its offbeat humor, is the film’s ambivalent relationship with the kaiju film. Although William Tsutsui suggests that Big Man Japan “combines a heartfelt nostalgia for the golden age of Toho science-fiction films with a scathing critique of Japan’s cynical and troubled twenty-first century society” (210), it is only easy to agree with the latter half of this statement. It is difficult to see how exactly the film expresses a “heartfelt nostalgia” for it appears to be wholly dismissive of kaiju films, refusing to take them seriously on any level above their superficial, kitsch qualities. Matsumoto ridicules, and eventually seems to reject, this bastion of Japanese popular culture, yet the film simultaneously upholds key (albeit less obvious) tropes of the kaiju film in order to mount its critique of contemporary Japanese society. Despite Matsumoto’s seeming indifference towards the genre, Big Man Japan remains a kaiju film all the same, and it maintains the tradition of social and political critique that began with the very first kaiju film, Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla (Gojira, 1954). Like many of its predecessors, there is more than meets than the eye to Matsumoto’s film. Moving beyond popular entertainment, Big Man Japan raises pertinent questions about Japan’s troubled sense of national and cultural identity in the twenty-first century, using the kaiju film as a vehicle to mount this critique, as well as highlighting the genre as a legitimate object of critique itself.
Matsumoto/Matchan
Given that Matsumoto has a radically different public profile in Japan than outside of it, it is useful to address the filmmaker behind the film before discussing what the film does. While Big Man Japan served as the West’s introduction to Matsumoto—the film’s star, director and producer—he has long been a giant of Japanese popular culture. Like Takeshi Kitano, an elder counterpart he admires, Matsumoto started in comedy before becoming a TV superstar and turned to filmmaking with a massive reputation (and equally massive public expectations) already in place. And like Kitano, Matsumoto is a prolific multi-disciplinarian who juggles creative roles, having directed films, produced for television and radio, and written over a dozen books.
Matsumoto shot to fame as one half of the hugely popular and influential manzai (a traditional form of Japanese stand-up comedy) duo Downtown, of which he has been a member since 1982 with partner Masatoshi Hamada (aka Hamachan). The duo became renowned for its unconventional comedic style, centered around ad-libbed gags focusing on mundane topics, delivered in an often rambling and conversational manner (rather than the snappy and tightly choreographed banter usually seen in manzai acts). Matsumoto played the simple-minded fool, or the boke role, while Hamada played the tsukkomi, or the straight person, who would often reprimand Matsumoto’s stupidity through slapstick violence. Kitano too shot to fame for his boke role in a famed manzai duo, Two Beat, with partner Niro Kaneko (aka Beat Kiyoshi). Both Kitano and Matsumoto have nicknames for their popular TV/comedic personas and use their full names as filmmakers: Kitano is commonly known as “Beat Takeshi,” while Matsumoto is affectionately known as “Matchan.”
The parallels between these two filmmakers were not lost on the Japanese media, many of whom were quick to suggest Matsumoto was Kitano’s successor after Big Man Japan premiered at the 2007 Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. Although Matsumoto’s status as a filmmaker remains far smaller than Kitano’s, particularly outside Japan, Big Man Japan was hugely successful, debuting at the top of the Japanese box office and surpassing Kitano’s Glory to the Filmmaker! (Kantoku Banzai!, 2007) in ticket sales. However, while there was a distinct split between the dark themes of Kitano’s earliest yakuza films (Violent Cop [Sono otoko, kyobo ni tsuki, 1989], Boiling Point [San tai Yon ekkusu Jugatsu, 1990]) and his popular persona, Big Man Japan was clearly a continuation, a case of a renowned comedian extending his art into a different medium. This is so despite Matsumoto declaring in 1998, “I won’t make a film. What you can do in film isn’t owarai [a broad term for Japanese TV comedy] but comedy. Comedy and owarai are completely different” (quoted in “Matsumoto Hitoshi vs. Katori Shingo”; my translation). The Japanese word Matsumoto uses for “comedy” here is kigeki, which implies a degree of pathos, and is quite unlike owarai, a form of comedy associated with TV and considered to be far more lowbrow, in which gags are usually manufactured for their own sake. Matsumoto ultimately upholds both comedic traditions in Big Man Japan. He embraces dramatic pathos in his nuanced portrayal of a pathetic and downtrodden character, while the film simultaneously showcases a plethora of lowbrow gags that have little bearing on the film’s narrative or themes. Incidentally, these two traditions are reflected in the structure of the film: the former is aligned with the documentary sequences and their focus on Daisato’s quotidian reality, while the latter finds its strongest expression in the film’s farcical kaiju battle sequences.
Because of Matsumoto’s ubiquity within Japanese popular culture, the slow-burn, observational documentary approach in Big Man Japan should not be seen as an earnest attempt to create an impression of reality, but as an extension of the deadpan style that permeates his work as a comedian. Matsumoto’s boke persona can be traced in Daisato’s simpleminded character, while the drawn-out interviews and languid pacing of the documentary sequences are largely the result of improvisation; Matsumoto has revealed in an interview that there was “fundamentally” no screenplay used for the film and that over half of the interview scenes were ad-libbed, much like his stand-up work (“Matsumoto Hitoshi vs. Katori Shingo”). In recent years, Matsumoto’s comedic style has relied heavily on an ill-tempered persona and his spontaneous outbursts. The former trait can be glimpsed in Matsumoto’s characterization of Daisato throughout the film—he mumbles his discontent about his life and circumstances regularly in front of the camera—but the latter fails to eventuate. In a humorous series of anti-climaxes that stress his pathetic character, Daisato remains relatively subdued, submissive and mediocre even when he transforms into a giant kaiju-battling superhero; his personality fails to grow in proportion to his size and the public derides him for it.
Matsumoto’s penchant for the absurd—most apparent in the film’s lineup of kaiju—was already well established in Downtown’s raucous variety shows such as Downtown no Gottsu Ee Kanji (Downtown’s “Feelin’ Good!,” 1991– 1997) and Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!! (Downtown’s “This Is No Job For Kids!!,” 1989–present), both of which featured an array of bizarre sketches, pranks and characters. Fantastic Fest co-founder Tim League recounts his first encounter with the latter show: “[M]y mind was shattered ... forever. In 30 minutes we were assaulted by a rapid-fire barrage of elaborate and gleeful torture challenges and pranks, seemingly LSD-inspired re-imaginings of Japanese monsters and costumed heroes, and sketch comedy that went from bone dry to berserk in the blink of an eye. I had never seen anything like it....” Although Big Man Japan is not as excessive as the variety shows through which Matsumoto cemented his fame, the film remains a bombastic showcase of his comedic prowess—an ambitious (and at times, unwieldy) fusion of inspired and idiotic comedy, with an iconic and long-standing genre of postwar Japanese cinema. Matsumoto’s eventual justification for moving into filmmaking was no less than wanting to “break cinema. To do what nobody else is doing” (Imai; my translation).
Matsumoto has also stated that Big Man Japan is designed specifically for Japanese, rather than foreign, audiences. At the post-screening Q&A at Cannes he expressed surprise that the audience appreciated the dried seaweed gag—one of several instances in which Daisato expresses his liking for things that expand, such as dried seaweed and fold-up umbrellas—before confirming that the film is aimed squarely at Japanese audiences (Imai). Particularly, he suggested that foreign audiences would fail to grasp the significance of the ensemble cast, which includes singer Ua as Daisato’s manager; cult actor Riki Takeuchi as the Leaping Monster; the baby-faced Ryunosuke Kamiki as the Baby Monster; and fellow comedians Haruka Unabara (with comb-over intact) and Itsuji Itao (a previous cast member on one of Downtown’s variety shows) as the Strangling and Stink Monsters, respectively.
Big Man Japan thus retains a heavily self-conscious quality for Japanese audiences well acquainted with Matsumoto, his career, and his comedic style, and the film plays with their expectations from the outset. In the opening shot, Daisato is sitting on a bus and looking out of the window, with his face turned away from the camera. As the interviewer asks the first of his many inane questions (“Do you prefer the hot weather?”), Daisato slowly turns around to reveal to the viewer the latest incarnation of Matsumoto’s comedic persona. Far from the from-out-of-left-field cult film it may appear to Western viewers, Big Man Japan is in fact a high-profile work, in which many of Matsumoto’s narrative and stylistic approaches resonate with those familiar with his formidable presence within Japanese popular culture.
Big Man Japan and the Kaiju Film
For an entertainer who had already conquered TV and a variety of other media, Matsumoto’s expansion into feature filmmaking is easily understandable—but why did he tackle the kaiju film in his first attempt at it? Matsumoto had previously flirted with costumed superheroes and kaiju in sketches for Downtown’s variety shows; their inherent silliness seems a perfect fit for a comedian who has built his career on innovative ways to be silly. While the kaiju and battle sequences in Big Man Japan allow Matsumoto to run riot with his comic inventions, these alone cannot sustain a feature-length film lest it become a series of disparate sketches with no coherent narrative. How then, besides its inclusion of the basic generic requirements—invading giant monsters, recognizable landmarks and plenty of destruction—does Big Man Japan sit within the genre of the kaiju film?
By virtue of being rendered in CGI, Big Man Japan’s battle sequences are consistent with most contemporary kaiju (and more broadly, action) films, and are at odds with early kaiju films, with their distinctive use of latex costumes and miniature models as cityscapes. However, they are similar to early kaiju films in that they both make little attempt at realism, unlike the Western tradition for special effects. The battle sequences in Big Man Japan have a peculiar atmosphere, set in vacant cityscapes with no presence of human beings. Obvious aesthetic differences aside, there is a strong juxtaposition established between the CGI and live-action sequences because the two modes of representation never even come close to overlapping. This runs counter to the practice of merging special effects and live-action within the same frame in both contemporary and early kaiju films (usually via CGI and trick photography, respectively), or the crosscutting between studio models and location shooting in tokusatsu (an umbrella term for live-action film or TV drama that relies heavily on special effects) superhero films and TV shows, in their attempt to reinforce the illusion that the action is unfolding in the same place and at the same time. The battle sequences in Big Man Japan are noticeably artificial, and Matsumoto gleefully exaggerates their artificiality. He refuses to integrate them with live-action images at any point, amplifying the contrast between the realist documentary sequences that make up most of the film, and the short and nonsensical CGI scenes that punctuate it. The kaiju battles in Big Man Japan exist in a comical aesthetic vacuum, similar to early video game cut-scenes that bear little resemblance to the actual game itself.
While its kitsch qualities clearly appeal to Matsumoto’s comedic sensibilities, the broader appeal of making a kaiju film is likely to lie in the genre’s dual role as popular entertainment and as a commentator for the Japanese national psyche. The original Godzilla, which established the template for all subsequent kaiju films, demonstrates this duality. As is well known, Godzilla today enjoys dual status as the pacesetter for a genre that has become an international popular culture phenomenon, and as one of cinema’s most potent anti-nuclear statements. It is a major historical and cultural achievement in itself, but it is the film’s latent quality—its powerful, political subtext—that has ensured the film’s longevity. Through its simple narrative of a monster awakened by nuclear testing and indiscriminately wreaking havoc on Tokyo, Godzilla captured the shared national trauma experienced by Japanese during the war, as well as the nuclear anxiety that haunted the nation after it.
The meaning of Godzilla—the monster itself—played no small part in articulating the film’s subtext. For Mark Holcomb, Godzilla serves as both “a metaphor for rapacious science” and “a manifestation of resurgent Japanese militarism” (58). According to Scarlet Cheng, for some Japanese it “embodies the souls of those who died in the atomic explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (15). For director Honda, who witnessed the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb on Hiroshima as he passed through the city on his return from China (where he served three terms as a soldier and was captured as a prisoner of war), Godzilla was not merely a “metaphor for the bomb but a physical manifestation of it” (Ryfle 52). In the many Toho offshoots following Godzilla, such as Rodan (1956) and Mothra (1961)—both directed by Honda—the form of the kaiju changed but the allegorical dimensions remained largely intact.
As Susan Hayward argues, a genre’s evolution “can be seen to reflect changes in the social and political environment ... so there is a cross-fertilisation between the nation’s image of itself and the imaging of the nation” (101). Hence, as the Godzilla franchise continued, the meaning of the monster evolved. In later years, as the immediate fear of nuclear warfare subsided and the national mood became more optimistic due to accelerating economic growth, Godzilla was “transformed from a vengeful and implacable threat to Japan into a defender and champion of Japan” (Tsutsui 209). A recent version of the monster in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All- Out Attack (Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaiju Sokogeki, 2001) sees the returning lizard “animated by the spirit of Japan’s war dead, attacking a country it no longer recognizes” (Hendrix 58). In its latest incarnation in Hideaki Anno’s Shin Godzilla (Shin Gojira, 2016), the monster evokes the multifaceted tragedy that befell Japan on 11 March 2011, “serving as an ambulatory tsunami, earthquake and nuclear reactor, leaving radioactive contamination in his wake” (Schilling). The original Godzilla trounced buildings and breathed fire on the city from above, evoking both the dual atomic bomb attacks and the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities. The newest Godzilla begins as an eel-like creature (it evolves throughout the course of the film) as it travels through Tokyo’s river system, before spilling out onto the streets on all fours and bringing along with it a torrent of water and debris—a disturbing sight that recalls the devastating footage of the tsunami in the Tohoku region. As Jason Barr observes, the most popular kaiju icons, such as Godzilla, have “enjoyed multiple interpretations across many decades, with the themes and imagery that surround them indicative of, and comprised of reality” (11–12; emphasis in original).
For the most part, however, Matsumoto does not even attempt to continue this longstanding tradition of embedding kaiju with meanings grounded in reality. Even a cursory glance at the film’s repertoire of kaiju will reveal that they have no relevance whatsoever to current or past social or political concerns in the country; they signify nothing and serve little purpose other than comedy. With the exception of the innocuous Baby Monster who Big Man Japan accidentally kills (it chomps down on his nipple as he cradles it in his arms, causing him to drop it), prompting his already low popularity to plummet further, and the nemesis Red Monster, who unleashes a severe beating upon Big Man Japan and forces him to flee from battle, the kaiju in the film do not have any impact on the narrative and could have been replaced with any other bizarre substitute. The glaring anomaly is the abovementioned Red Monster—a fierce and psychopathic creature that is stripped of the cute characteristics found on all of the other kaiju in the film—which clearly represents the perceived threat of north Korea, Japan’s close neighbor and regional bogeyman. The Red Monster is the only kaiju in the film that is rendered entirely in CGI, and is acknowledged as a threat originating from overseas (“Apparently it’s not Japanese,” advises Daisato’s manager after his first encounter with it). Meanwhile, all of the other kaiju are implied to be harmless domestic nuisances, as made obvious by the recognizable Japanese cast who play them, and their general lack of menace (“Don’t come to the city—go out to the suburbs,” Daisato scolds the Stink Monster).
Rather than exonerating the film of any social or political concerns, the meaninglessness and harmlessness of the kaiju redirect attention towards the film’s true subject matter: contemporary Japanese society. For example, one of the film’s understated gags is that the kaiju battles leave no actual imprint outside of the CGI sequences in which they occur. Despite the widespread destruction of bridges, buildings and other infrastructure (the standard kaiju film fare), no visual evidence of this destruction exists when the battles end. When the film reverts to live-action, life seems to continue entirely as normal and yet, the public complains incessantly! The Japanese people despise Big Man Japan for making a mess and causing inconvenience but none of this mess can actually be seen, and the public is never able to provide a persuasive reason as to how they are being inconvenienced. When people are stopped in the street throughout the film and asked to comment upon the previous night’s battle in a series of vox pop interviews, some speak about it as if it were a game or sport (“That was a joke, really. I want to see a real fight”), some criticize Big Man Japan without citing any particular reason (“He winds up causing us more trouble”), some are simply cruel (“His face is huge”), and all of them do not recognize the battles as something of consequence, despite the fact that Big Man Japan is presumably saving their city from destruction. Writing about Godzilla, J. Hoberman notes how the film “successfully dramatized the monstrous rupture of World War II and its aftermath by integrating the fantastic and the everyday.” in Big Man Japan, Matsumoto presents a different kind of rupture: a society no longer able to discern what exists within the realm of TV and popular entertainment, and what may have actual consequences on their lives; in other words, a failure to distinguish between what is real and meaningful, and what is not.
When Japanese people express political opinions in the film, the sentiments are frequently incoherent and hypocritical. In an extended tracking shot following Daisato’s scooter ride through a valley en route to the transformation plant, he passes a series of environmentalist graffiti on the walls, condemning Big Man Japan on everything from noise pollution, wasting electricity and scaring off wild birds. In kaiju films it is typically the invading kaiju that are seen as the environmental threat, but in an ironic twist, Big Man Japan is made to adopt this burden as the superhero. After two kaiju that he attempts to repel begin having sex, newspaper headlines label him a pervert and a pimp, and Daisato’s house is vandalized and plastered in leaflets that read, “Children Watch TV.” The Red Monster is identified as a foreign threat and only Big Man Japan is prepared to fight against it, but after he is forced to flee from their first battle, his bravery and patriotism are called into question. In general, Big Man Japan is expected by the public to uphold an impossible commitment: repel the kaiju but do so in an orderly, noble and entertaining fashion, and assume full responsibility if something goes wrong.
There is not a single sympathetic character in sight in the film. Daisato’s manager is a money-hungry narcissist who is clearly ripping him off. It is implied that his wife left him because of his lack of wealth and success. The offscreen documentary filmmaker is obtrusive, obnoxiously blunt and unethical, and at one point schemes with Daisato’s manager and the government to stage a fight between Big Man Japan and the Red Monster (soldiers break into Daisato’s house at night while he sleeps to transform him by force; the documentary crew pre-empt the invasion and are there to capture it all). The minor characters fare no better. The members of the public are savage in their criticism of Big Man Japan after a fight, for entirely trivial reasons; the various government workers who assist with Daisato’s transformation are mindless and charmless bureaucrats; and Daisato’s young daughter appears only briefly, with her face pixelated beyond recognition and her voice dropped several octaves into an ugly drawl. The closest the film has to a sympathetic character is Daisato himself, but even his sympathetic traits are offset by his frustrating submissiveness and his shortcomings as a husband and father, as revealed by his ex-wife to the documentary crew.
As these examples illustrate, the overall impression that Matsumoto paints of the Japanese is that they are petty, cynical and insular, and lacking any coherent identity or principled political stance. Steve Ryfle suggests that the original Godzilla affected Japanese audiences greatly because “the wounds of World War II were far from healed by 1954” (50). For the Japanese who appear in Big Man Japan, the traumatic events of the wartime past are a forgotten memory, and the very notions of war, violence and death seem to have become abstract concepts. As the film makes abundantly clear, the context of Japan in the twenty-first century is vastly different to that of the immediate postwar period. Matsumoto depicts a complacent Japanese society that seems to have become spoiled by peace, and whose sense of a shared national identity has all but vanished.
While Big Man Japan appears initially to engage with the kaiju film only on a superficial level, it in fact continues the genre’s longstanding tradition of social and political critique, and its examination of the Japanese national psyche. However, Matsumoto’s downplaying of the significance of the kaiju results in a kaiju film whose primary concern is the character of the Japanese people. In this respect, Big Man Japan is an unusual kaiju film in that its central themes are specific to its local setting and context—it lacks what Barr identifies as integral to most kaiju films, namely the “acknowledgement of worldwide anxieties” and the reflection of “greater social issues, which often supersede national boundaries” (12). The kaiju in Big Man Japan are mere footnotes, as reflected by their harmlessness, lack of meaning and minor position within the film’s narrative. The sole exception of the Red Monster represents accentuated anxieties about the threat of north Korea, and these anxieties are particular to Japan and, of course, South Korea—two nations that are north Korea’s nearest ideological enemies and which perceive its threat most directly. Big Man Japan may have travelled widely and garnered a cult following worldwide, yet it is a kaiju film whose key concerns are resolutely local and, as Matsumoto has asserted, aimed specifically at Japanese audiences.
Japan, America, Kaiju
Matsumoto expands his critique of contemporary Japanese society by focusing on another mainstay of the kaiju film, which relates to Japan’s complex relations with the United States. Early kaiju films were often directly or indirectly critical of the United States (then still a recent enemy) through, for example, their allusions to its military actions during World War II and hydrogen bomb testing in the 1950s. Over a half-century later, Big Man Japan focuses instead on the impact of Japan’s continuing military partnership with the United States, as well as the aftermath of Japan’s absorption of American culture in the postwar period as it reintegrated into the world community.
These themes are first explored indirectly through markers of Japanese culture and tradition that turn out to be quite nonsensical. Big Man Japan, like most of the kaiju that appear in the film, lacks any intelligible cultural meaning despite his historic lineage and that he supposedly embodies a nation’s values (Dai Nipponjin translates literally as “Big Japanese”). He has a series of tattoos on his body (including the kanji character 大/dai, meaning “big”) that hint at a vague sense of Japanese tradition, but is otherwise a ridiculous sight, adorned with characteristics that have no unifying theme (tall perm, purple underpants, flabby body, a baton as a weapon). When Daisato is transformed into Big Man Japan, the process begins with a shambolic, quasi-Shinto ceremony referred to as “The Ritual of Soul insertion”—a ritual carried down from the past for no apparent reason and now watered down to the point of being meaningless. Even a government worker at the transformation plant concedes to the documentary crew that the ritual is unnecessary, and when the interviewer interrupts the ceremony and asks the priest to repeat a segment for the sake of the camera, he is only too happy to oblige. Like Big Man Japan’s physical appearance—ostensibly Japanese but actually absent of meaning—this ludicrous ritual hints at a contemporary Japan whose sense of tradition has become diluted, and whose cultural expressions have become confused and tokenistic.
This notion of diminishing Japanese-ness is reinforced by a series of weird incongruities between Japanese and American culture throughout the film. On the way to visit his daughter (who has the Anglo name “Selina”) for her birthday, Matsumoto reveals in an insert shot what Daisato bought for her as a gift: a tasteless sequin-studded bunny-hat labeled “USA CHAN” (sub- titled as “Bunny Girl”); the subsequent birthday lunch is set to take place in an American-style diner called “Big Boy.” After Big Man Japan accidentally kills the Child Monster, Matsumoto cuts to improbable scenes of candle-lit public vigils, with Japanese crowds holding “God Bless...” signs in English and swaying to the serenading of gospel singers. Although these examples may only be gags highlighting the inadvertently amusing ways in which Japanese often integrate aspects of American culture, there are other instances in the film that suggest there is more at play.
In a rambling and semi-coherent interview early in the film, Daisato states that he can never take vacations because he is always on call. When quizzed about this by the interviewer, he reveals that he does not even own a passport and has never left the country:
INTERVIEWER: No trips overseas?
DAISATO: Overseas? No, never. I don’t even have a passport. I just accept that’s the way things are. I’m not “Anti-U.S.,” but.... You see.... With protecting Japan ... “Protecting Japan” is not the way I like to put it, but.... That’s a factor, too.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t like the United States? You said “Anti-U.S.”?
DAISATO: Well, of course.... In this day and age, they’re not exactly The Enemy, but.... I was brought up that way a bit. Fed some ideas.... You know.
Daisato implies that a reason he chooses not to travel overseas is because he prefers to remain in Japan and protect the nation himself, rather than allowing the United States to do so. This alludes to the United States’ somewhat awkward position as the nation that devastated Japan during the war and occupied it after the war ended, but which has since become a de facto protector for a country unable to develop its own military force (due to Article 9 of the U.S.–devised, pacifist postwar constitution). Today the United States is the closest ally of Japan, where it stations some 50,000 military personnel—more than in any other foreign country and an ongoing source of contention for many Japanese.
Daisato’s confused and confusing response, which hints at a restrained nationalist/anti–American sentiment without expressing it clearly, nonetheless reflects some of the ambivalent Japanese attitudes towards the United States and its military presence in Japan. Writing about the postwar protests against American military bases in Japan, Jennifer Miller argues that the issue of bases “presented a fundamental conundrum to U.S. policymaking” in that “on the one hand, they seemingly granted security in a turbulent region, strengthening pro–American ties. On the other hand, the presence of U.S. military bases directly contradicted U.S. claims about the value of Japanese sovereignty, sparked intense local opposition to the alliance with the united States, and challenged the political foundations of the U.S.–Japanese relationship” (954). This conundrum is also reflected in the continuing ambivalence of Japanese attitudes towards the United States, its military presence, and its role in Japan’s geopolitical affairs; as Carol Gluck suggests, this ambivalence amounts to Japan paradoxically “wanting [the United States] gone and wanting it there at the same time” (307). Despite this context, Daisato’s point ultimately remains unclear: is it a vague expression of national pride, a desire for Japanese autonomy, a broader anti–U.S. sentiment, or simply xenophobia? His inability to articulate his views with any fluency becomes yet another example from the film in which Japanese people are unable to express a coherent political opinion.
Big Man Japan saves its most direct political commentary for its finale and it is aimed firmly at the United States. After being transformed by force, Big Man Japan is about to suffer another humiliating defeat at the hands of the Red Monster, who catches him as he flees and begins to stomp on him on the ground. There is a sudden white flash, and an offscreen voice shouts, “Freeze!” before a caption encourages the viewer to “enjoy the rest live!” The film then cuts to a live-action studio set filled with a miniature model cityscape, and a nuclear family of superheroes, played by actors in latex suits, is introduced in turn: “American Hero” Super Justice, who resembles Ultraman; Super Justice’s father; Stay With Me, the mother; Don’t Touch Me, the pubescent younger sister; and Be My Baby, the infant (the captioned character names are not translated in the English subtitles). Although they resemble the iconic Japanese Ultraman family, each of these superheroes is embellished with caricatured signifiers of the United States. All of them have blonde hair, their costumes are comprised of the colors of the American flag, the mother is obese, and the father wears platforms and flared pants, and poses like a cowboy.
They proceed to unceremoniously bash the Red Monster, who is now a benign figure played by a person in a padded suit. Super Justice picks up a yellow toy bus and beats him over the head. His sister kneels on a patch of grass rolling up newspapers, passing them to her brother for him to use as a weapon. The family members take turns hitting and flipping the Red Monster onto the floor, before stripping the clothes and padding off its body. As it lies limp and unmoving, the father delivers the coup de grâce by tearing off its underpants. Throughout, Matsumoto foregrounds the artifices of tokusatsu filmmaking to comical extremes. The pacing of the editing is awkward because most of the action is shown continuously, as if it were filmed live (for example, Matsumoto films the entire process of the father struggling to tear off the Red Monster’s underpants). Coverage is provided by multiple cameras, contrasting sharply with the rest of the film and emphasizing the studio aesthetic. And the scene unfolds to an overzealous, patriotic superhero theme song which stops and starts when blows are delivered, while the use of location sounds highlights the materiality of the fake set, costumes and props.
The Justice family then form a row and stack their hands (to the chant of “Peace!”), and oblige Big Man Japan (who has been hiding behind a building) to do likewise. A rainbow laser beam shoots out from where their hands meet and begins zapping the incapacitated Red Monster. Big Man Japan removes his hand to find that the beam works just as well without his input; “I make no difference,” he mutters to himself. The Red Monster explodes. The family members link arms, with Big Man Japan in the middle, and fly off into the sky. When his shoe slips off his foot mid-flight, Big Man Japan turns to alert his American counterparts but finds that they have become creepily unresponsive—silent, eyes vacant, and flying on autopilot. In an absurd echo of the iconic image from the Ultraman (1966–67) series, in which the titular hero flies off into the sky after defeating his foe in every episode, the film ends with a dumbfounded Big Man Japan hanging vertically and being ferried away by his American “protectors.” Ultimately, he is depicted as an ineffective superhero whose role in protecting the nation is only symbolic; when push comes to shove, it is the will and might of the United States that will get the job done.
Given the United States’ ongoing involvement in Japan’s geopolitical affairs, it is understandable that the greatest military power in the world should continue to resurface as a source of critique in kaiju films. It is, after all, the United States whose wartime actions against the Japanese population and postwar status as a nuclear superpower provided the impetus for the original Godzilla and many subsequent kaiju films. Yet, as Matsumoto’s film makes plain, the kaiju film also owes its existence to the United States. Godzilla was inspired by, and cashed in on, the success of the American sci-fi monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953); Kim Newman goes so far as to suggest that it was “a blatant imitation” of the earlier film and that all of the earliest kaiju films “are still frank imitations of Hollywood” (11). Writing about Japan’s first live-action TV superhero Gekko Kamen (1958– 59), Jonathan Abel proposes that the series “and its subsequent spawn, from Kamen Rider to Ultraman, are one allegorical reflection both of the growing perception in 1950s Japan that postwar justice originated from abroad and of the concomitant doubts about the possibility of a truly native Japanese justice” (188). Big Man Japan’s finale sequence raises this question of justice in a spectacularly unsubtle and sarcastic fashion, and exposes the kaiju/superhero film for what Mastumoto believes it to be: adults in rubber costumes, on an artificial set, playing out a phony idea of justice inherited from the United States. If Big Man Japan had until this point maintained a degree of ambivalence towards the kaiju film, here it ridicules it outright, framing it as the object of critique itself.
Big Man Japan presents a contemporary Japanese society unsure of its own identity, and the kaiju film becomes emblematic of this uncertainty: is the kaiju film really Japanese, and if so, how and why? What exactly does it say about the nation? And is it effective to use the kaiju film to critique the United States when it is so heavily embedded into the fabric of the genre itself, just as the United States is so heavily embedded in Japan’s geopolitical affairs in the actual world? Big Man Japan is a parody of the kaiju film, but the questions it raises about the genre is ultimately what differentiates it from the playful kaiju parodies of the past (for example, the numerous tokusatsu fan film parodies produced by Daicon Films). While all of these films satirize the genre’s tropes and aesthetics, Matsumoto’s film goes further, questioning the ideological roots of the kaiju film itself.
Conclusion
Kaiju and superheroes come and go, and the innovative special effects techniques that once made kaiju films so distinctly Japanese have been almost completely supplanted by CGI. As a popular genre, the kaiju film is widely understood and appreciated; as such, it has produced its fair share of weak imitations designed to do little more than cash in on what came before it. But the core premise of the genre remains robust enough to allow for the investigation of problems and fears troubling the nation at a particular point in time. It is the ongoing allegorical potential of the kaiju film which has seen filmmakers return to it, again and again.
In this light, Big Man Japan can be seen to uphold the kaiju film’s longstanding tradition of socio-political critique, despite the film’s flagrant disregard for many of its generic staples. it also expands the traditional focus of the genre: here, the nation’s sense of vulnerability to disaster is a distant concern; it is instead the nation’s troubled sense of itself that provides the primary focus of the film. Matsumoto uses the kaiju film to explore this issue, but he does so by demoting the importance of the kaiju themselves, and through the reflexive appraisal of the genre in which the film operates. While it may not be the expression of “heartfelt nostalgia” for the genre as suggested by Tsutsui, Big Man Japan nonetheless remains a hilarious and inventive contemporary example of it. It is a fascinating illustration of the kaiju film’s flexibility and durability, and the ways in which it continues to evolve, like Godzilla, according to the state of Japan and its relationship with the world.
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